Jury convicts teen of murder

FORT MYERS A teenager was convicted of murdering a 17-year-old honor student and setting her on fire after more than three hours of jury deliberation Friday.

Joshua Henninger, 19, of Cape Coral, cried as the verdict was read.

He was charged with the 2005 kidnapping, rape and murder of Annamarie Cruz Randazzo.

Henninger and Jeremy Chapman, 25, were arrested in 2005 after Randazzo's burned remains were found by campers in a wooded area.

Randazzo had stopped at Henninger's home in July 2005, but got into an argument with the men and one of them struck her.

The men tied her up, drove her to an unknown location and killed her, then put her body in an abandoned refrigerator and set it ablaze, police said.

Defense attorneys argued that Henninger was too scared to stand up to Chapman. Public Deputy Defender Ken Garber told the jury that Chapman, not Henninger, had plotted the attack.

"This isn't the movie of the week where the hero rises to the occasion. This is a boy who was expected to be a man," Garber said. "He used bad judgment and perhaps he was cowardly in what he did, he just wasn't strong enough to stop it."

Chapman pleaded guilty to Randazzo's murder and another murder in June. Lee County Circuit Judge Thomas S. Reese said Henninger will be will be formally sentenced Oct. 24.

"We're just happy with the outcome," Randazzo's stepfather Jeff Walter said. "We feel that justice, as much as could be done, was served."

Phone messages left by The Associated Press with Garber and State's Attorney Steve Russell were not immediately returned Friday evening.